The Lost Homeland
by Arturo Prendergast
Summary: A foreigner of few possessions, fewer words, and many secrets arrives in Republic City.
1. Welcome To Republic City

In the shadow of the sedge hat, only the traveler's lips, red, closed, and full were exposed. Their clothing was dusty from the road and the knapsack on their back was the dun green of Earth Kingdom cloth, as was the rest of their ensemble. They looked like any other rural traveler, another pilgrim or poor kid who thought they'd make it big in Republic City, leaving as quickly as they came.

When the traveler met the bridge, they were not unsettled like other newcomers to the city by the blaring and sooty automobiles that clogged the roadway. The traveler instead continued forward, head down against the sun, looking up briefly only for a glance at the statue on Aang Memorial Island.

* * *

The shrieking of trolleys, Satomobiles, motorcycles, and the rushing crowds around the traveler never hindered them. They moved like a ghost, no one giving them a glance besides the occasional curious child. Silence was in their movements.

The traveler stepped into an alleyway, set the knapsack down, and tossed the sedge hat into a pile of rubbish, quickly changing their clothing into something cleaner.

If anyone had been in the alleyway, they would have stopped a while and stared. The sedge hat uncovered a head of white-gold hair that spilled, though limp from sweat, onto the traveler's shoulders as iced eyes moved everywhere, gathering the scene. The new clothing gave an outline of a hard, thin body, with a hint of a woman in the curves. The traveler pulled her hair into an indecent topknot and departed the alley.

She continued on, eventually finding what she was looking for in a quiet building with wide red shutters off the main roads. An small, graying woman accumulating a pile of sunflower seeds and reading the newspaper raised her head when the traveler entered the restaurant.

Slowly, she approached the counter. A wooden clock ticked loudly on the wall behind the old woman and the room smelled of stale tea leaves and fish sauce. "I was told I could find a room here," the traveler spoke. Her voice was low, calm.

The old woman spit a hull into the pile. "I've got two rooms, one with a window, the other without. Thirty yuans a month—per window," the old woman grinned, revealing a handful of blackened teeth.

"Window," the traveler replied, handing over a tightly rolled pack of bills.

"Excellent choice."

The old woman led the traveler out to the inner garden and up the outdoor stairs, rambling as she went.

"You're a kid from the country, right? No. Not so much... You have a water tribe look—that hair. North or South? Don't worry, you don't have to answer. I like to wonder. You seem too young to be traveling by yourself, though. What are you, fifteen? Sixteen? I don't want the police coming around asking if I'm harboring a runaway. _And __you __better __be __able __to __pay __me __each __month__..._"

She unlocked a door in the shade of a tree growing up from the inner garden. The two of them walked inside.

It was a bare-amenities flat, with a wood stove and a rusting bathing tub. The single window was surprisingly large, paneled with yellowed rice paper and bloodwood.

"Thirty," the old woman said, wagging her finger between the traveler and the window, "per window."

The traveler only responded by settling her pack on the dusty floor.

"You can find bedrolls up by Tatsumi Avenue. Tell the lady there Mina sent you. She'll throw in a pillow and a wool blanket. Expect them to be moth-eaten."

The old woman handed over a key.

"Welcome to Republic City," she grinned, again with the teeth.


	2. Mina's Story

The fire wouldn't start.

In the red light of the dusk, the girl's face was pressed in concentration. Her features were white, smooth, and silken. They had always called her beautiful—and she was. Some said she had a cold heart—and she did.

Perhaps the coolness of that heart kept the fire from igniting, but that heart also kept her from giving up trying. She had always been so stubborn, so silently stubborn. So stubborn as to not even regret being so.

Eventually, the newspapers lit up and caught the kindle. The girl closed the small stove and pulled her bed roll as close as she could to it.

Fire-starting was harder these days.

Even in the waning day, she pulled out the small packet of bound papers from inside the knapsack and began to read. She was halfway through, but it didn't matter-she had read the book five times over on her way here. The rest of the few books she had traveled with had been left behind when she had left the ship. The papered book had been the lightest of them all.

As she read, her face showed only a glimpse of interest. The eyes of iced-blue hardly moved. Though her countenance was demure and child-like, everything changed with those eyes. Of all the things that could be said about her, they all were called into question when you factored in the eyes. They had the tendency to regard you with judgment, superiority, and of a privilege deserved. They were eyes trained for status and tempered with knowledge, perhaps hardship. You could never tell which; it was difficult to look too long. The eyes pierced.

Since her arrival, the girl had nursed her hair back from their travel-weary days. It was thick and long, curling slightly against her shoulders. She took care to wear a hat when she went out.

The light was gone now, and the book was set aside. The white-haired girl curled up tightly and willed herself to sleep.

* * *

Mina was not amused.

Her husband had left all the dirty dishes in the sink overnight—again. She grumbled as she turned the water valve on and let water fill up a large stock pot. Without grudging effort, the slight woman carried the pot over to the stove and began to make a fire to heat it.

Before the tenants had moved out, Lao Fei and Fern, Mina and Lao Fei's daughter, had cleaned the restaurant's dishes. But that was before the pro-bending arena in Yue Bay. Everything changed when Butakha had it built and began taking up kids with bending skills from the streets and turning them into celebrities. Benders from all the nations came to Republic City with the hope that they could be a pro-bender whose name was shouted through the radio...and of course, a taste of the wealth which had been denied to them in their towns and villages.

Before the arena, a bending academy near the restaurant had brought student tenants and customers into Mina and Lao Fei's restaurant and boarding house. Business had been easy, the street full of noise, and busy with merchants haggling with the flood of young people.

Now there wasn't enough demand for the style of training the academy had offered; instead everyone went to training gyms that held promises of pro-bending success. The academies had taught benders the fighting arts, as well as the spiritual qualities of element bending; the gyms trained only for chanced aspirations.

When the academy closed and the tenants left, so did Fern. Mina supposed that her daughter felt that waterbending for the washing and cooking was too menial a task for her gifted skill. And perhaps it was. From then on, the restaurant continued to suffer and without tenants paying rent, Lao Fei took up a job at the power plant generating lightning for the city's vast electrical system. By the time he came home at night, he was always too exhausted to clean the few dishes left from the restaurant's dinner crowd. The customers that came now were only long-time regulars. Mina knew she couldn't blame Lao Fei for not doing kitchen duty; instead, she let her annoyance turn to guilt inside her. Nestled beside that feeling was the loss of her daughter. No one knew where she had gone, whether she had found a team, or if she had left the city. There was too much pain in not knowing whether your child was safe or not.

Mina hoped that this new tenant wasn't like the others. The girl was the same type of country kid who came to the city in hope of a greater life, and for benders, the chance at pro-bending glory. But Mina hadn't seen any bending from the girl in the three weeks she'd been here. Certainly the girl left the room often enough, but she never came back with anything, not even the exhausted expression of someone returning from a day of work.

But Mina was not the prying kind. She hadn't even asked for the girl's name. As long as the rent came in on time and the flat didn't fall through the roof of the restaurant, Mina was satisfied.

The rent. That was another thing festering with Mina's guilt. She was sorry that she had to give the poor girl a high rental rate for such an under-furnished room, but what could she do? The girl at least hadn't complained about the price.

Mina finished scrubbing the dishes and let them dry in the sunlight coming through the open window. Her muddled-brown eyes seemed weary, or perhaps she was just tired.

_If __only __I __had __been __a __waterbender __like __my __mother__. __It __wouldn__'__t __take __so __long __to __wash __dishes __if __I __could __waterbend__._ But it had been Fern who inherited Mina's mother's bending. Sometimes bending skipped a generation.

There was a quick succession of loud thumps from above and Mina looked up, wondering what her new tenant was busy doing.

* * *

_A/N_

_I would just like to say that I'm very excited for Tahno Saturday morning. That is all._


End file.
